DealerTrack is revving up the analytic capabilities of its dealer management system (DMS) with a customer-facing business intelligence (BI) solution from Information Builders. As news about the struggling U.S. auto industry continues to dominate headlines, DealerTrack is demonstrating how BI dashboards, created with the Information Builders WebFOCUS BI platform, can help dealers make smarter, more profitable decisions related to customers, sales, inventory and finance.

In addition to operating the industry's largest online credit application network, DealerTrack is an application service provider (ASP). It created DMS to manage every aspect of the automotive retail business, from selling cars to handling vehicle inventory to producing financial statements. Offered as an on-demand service, nearly 2,500 auto dealers have adopted DMS for its comprehensive functionality and lightweight, on-demand deployment model. These customers can log in to the system from any Web browser – a similar architecture to the WebFOCUS environment, which is known for its zero-client footprint on user desktops.

According to CJ Pedler, a senior project manager in DealerTrack's South Jordan, Utah, office, DealerTrack selected WebFOCUS because of its lightweight, browser-based deployment model and also because WebFOCUS provides a superior end-user experience.

"Information Builders is pushing us to the top of our industry with its customer-facing BI technology," Pedler said. "WebFOCUS simplifies deployment for us and improves usability for our customers. Authorized users can use our DMS dashboards to easily select data, format reports, and obtain precisely the types of information they want to see from our dealer management system."

WebFOCUS also works well with DealerTrack's IBM iSeries platform and DB2 database, which, according to Pedler, made it easy to integrate with DealerTrack's existing software infrastructure. The new BI environment includes parameterized reports that enable dealers to easily extract data and create custom reports.

For example, the Parts Inventory report helps service personnel restock inventory, the Sales History report helps sales managers make smarter purchasing decisions, and the Customer Activity report helps dealers launch targeted promotions. WebFOCUS enforces the existing login procedures and access restrictions resident in the Dealer Management System. A reporting wizard asks questions and then generates reports based on each user's responses.

"Information Builders has been phenomenal to work with. They have gone out of their way to improve the reporting system, strengthen the security architecture, and make the BI environment very appealing and user-friendly for our customers," said Blake Nielson, director of solutions at DealerTrack's South Jordan, Utah office.

DealerTrack expects to deploy 1,500 instances of the new reporting environment to automotive dealerships this year and ultimately to offer it to 2,500 dealerships supporting about 10,000 users.

"True customer-facing BI environments of this type are rare in the ASP market," said Gerald Cohen, president and CEO of Information Builders. "Today's auto dealers must learn to work smarter to increase profits. DealerTrack is using BI technology to help them identify their best customers, pinpoint up-sell opportunities, and run their back offices as efficiently as possible."